


fate sealed long ago

by songofwinterfell



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofwinterfell/pseuds/songofwinterfell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frigga knows that there will be a price to pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fate sealed long ago

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having lots of Frigga feels lately, so I decided to write this. This was supposed to be happy and everything, but apparently I can't write such things. And English isn't my native language, so there might be some grammatical mistakes.
> 
> The characters belong to Marvel, and the title is taken from Code Name: Raven by House of Heroes.
> 
> Also in songofwinterfell.tumblr.com

When Odin fights a war, Frigga weaves.

She spends her days ruling the realm, sitting on his throne and listening as the council keeps her informed of the war. It is her duty, and she does it with her head held high for she is the Queen of Asgard, and she will be the ruler they need in these difficult times.

The realm consists now only of women and children and those who are too old, all warriors fighting a war far away in the icy lands of Jötunheim. Everything is so quiet now that they are gone, and there is a dark shadow hanging over their realm, waiting for the chance to strike. Frigga sees how the women keep glancing at the Bifrost, their faces worried, fearing for their husbands and sons. She tries to keep their spirits up and their courage strong, but she fears too. If Asgard loses, if her husband dies, they will be doomed. She knows the Jötnar will give them no mercy.

Every day when the sun sets and she is alone in her chambers, she takes out her yarns and starts to weave. Her fingers run gracefully through the loom, weaving some and then unraveling it, over and over until she is pleased with the result. It’s a long and complicated process, but she likes the way it calms her, likes the feeling of the fabric in her hands. She is proud of her skill in weaving, and many of her tapestries decorate the halls of the palace.

It was her mother who taught her to weave, and they used to sit together in her chambers in the evenings, just the two of them. Frigga watched as the yarns danced in her mother’s hands, her fingers quick as lighting as she wove. The tapestries were always magnificent, but sometimes they were also dark and eery, and Frigga remembers once asking her mother about those ones. Her mother only said that her skill came with a price and hid the tapestries away.

Frigga knows much of magic, having been raised in Vanaheim where it is common for young girls to study it. It has always been natural to her, as easy as breathing, and she is a formidable sorceress, well versed in illusions and spells. But most of all, she sees.

Sometimes her tapestries are filled with images that are not her doing, images of the twists of the future. They come and go, some of them clear and some of them not, and it's not a power she can control. She can never predict the visions, but she is always weaving when they come, and every time her fingers move on their accord and weave what she sees. The visions are only flickers of fate, small gifts from the Norns, but they always come true. Frigga has learned to fear what she weaves.

Tonight she sits on her balcony, gazing at the sea. Her elaborate hair pins fly off in the wind and her hair swirls around her face, making her feel like a young girl again. The night has fallen, the stars and moons visible in the sky, and she can see the lights coming from the observatory where Heimdall guards the realm. She wonders where her husband is.

A basket of yarns sits by her feet, and she weaves, but somehow she feels restless. She has had dreams lately, and though she doesn’t remember them when she wakes, she knows they are signs. She knows something is happening, feels it when she closes her eyes and she fears. The ability to see was given to her for a reason, and it’s a wondrous gift, but she knows it can also be a heavy burden.

She pulls the yarns together piece by piece, and she doesn’t even look at what she weaves. Her eyes are fixed on the Bifrost, waiting. When her fingers grow tired and there are no more yarns left, she raises the tapestry so she can see what she has woven.

She gasps and covers her mouth with her hand.

The tapestry consists only of pieces of blue and red and green put together in no rational order, twirling and twisting across the fabric, but Frigga is filled with horror. She stares at it, her heart thrumming in her chest and she feels faint. Were anyone else to look at it, it would mean nothing to them, but Frigga looks and sees. She sees ice and blood and magic, sees betrayal and hate overcome laughter and happiness, pain and grief so strong that she can’t tear her eyes away, can’t stop herself from seeing it.

The tapestry falls from her hands as if it burns, and Frigga leans back in her chair. It is quiet, the only sound is her heavy breathing as she tries to remove the images from her mind. Her hands are shaking and she wraps them around herself, feeling cold. She realises that something is changing. Her prophesies have never been this powerful, never this frightening.

The Norns are sending her a message, she thinks. A warning.

The Bifrost is illuminated by a sudden burst of light, the bridge opening the paths between the realms. Frigga’s breath catches in her throat again as she dares to hope. She stands and watches as warriors pour of the observatory, lead by Odin, and she bursts into tears. She has been strong since he left, but now she allows herself to weep.

She knows he will come to her, so she waits. When she finally hears the door opening, she rushes in to greet him, to run into his arms and kiss him. But then she stops suddenly when she sees him.

Odin’s right eye is gone, and there is only a gaping hole left, bloody and gruesome. Frigga doesn't flinch from the sight for she has seen worse, but it is the small and familiar looking bundle that makes something in her tremble.

”What is it?” she asks, her voice quiet. She hesitates before taking a step forward.

Odin unwraps the bundle, and Frigga sees that there is a baby in his arms. It is tiny and pale as moonlight, sound asleep. Odin touches the baby’s cheek tenderly and looks at his wife.

”We won, my love. Laufey was defeated, and the Casket of Ancient Winters was taken away from them”, he says. ”The cost was great, but in the end we were victorious.”

Frigga moves to touch Odin’s arm, and she feels blood under her hand. She doesn't know whether it is his or the blood of his enemy. ”And the baby?”

”I found him after the battle, alone and cold. He was left to die”, Odin says. He looks weary and much older than when he left.

”Left to die?” Frigga repeats. She thinks of the baby lying in the snow, all alone, and shudders.

Odin nods. ”He is small for his kind. Too small, and the Jötnar are a harsh people. They tolerate no weaknesses so they abandon their runts. Even their princes.”

Frigga turns to look at Odin, processing the words she just heard. The baby in her husband’s arms is the son of his enemy, son of the man who took his eye. Frigga doesn’t hate the Jötnar as many do, but she doesn’t understand what Odin thinks he will achieve with this.

”Laufey is a prideful man. I imagine he couldn’t bear the shame of having sired a sickly child, a runt”, Odin continues. ”His firstborn heir.”

Frigga can’t keep her eyes off the baby, and there is something tugging at her heart, feelings she can’t describe. She reaches out to touch the baby, careful not to wake him.

”Why?” is all she says, even though there are so many other questions she wants to ask. But she can’t force the words out of her mouth, they get stuck in her throat so she says nothing else. She knows Odin will understand what she means.

”I found him, Frigga”, Odin says quietly. ”I saved him.”

Frigga thinks of Thor then, her precious child, so young and innocent, and that’s when she understands why Odin has brought the baby to her. She takes the child from his hands.

The baby stirs, his nose wrinkling and his tiny fists waving in the air. He lets out a small whimper, and Frigga hushes him, offering her finger and pressing it gently against his mouth. The baby sucks on it greedily, and Frigga can’t stop the smile that finds it way to her face. She looks at him and thinks he’s beautiful.

”We shall raise him as our own”, she says, having made her decision. They could give him to some poor childless couple, but she wants him. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t her child by blood and that he is a Frost Giant. He is only a young baby, innocent for his father’s crimes, and he deserves to be loved. Frigga promises that she will make him her child and keep him safe.

Odin smiles at her, tired but genuine, and presses a light kiss to her forehead. She leans into the touch, having missed him so much.

”My sweet Queen”, he murmurs softly. ”Always so loving.”

They move to sit on the bed, the baby resting between their arms as they continue to look at him. He opens his eyes then, and Frigga sees that they are a brilliant shade of green, bright as the leaves in the summer. He looks around, his face wrinkling at the unfamiliar area, and Frigga rocks him gently and soothes him. The baby looks at her and lets out a sudden burst of laughter, reaching out his hands and trying to touch a strand of Frigga’s hair that dangles above him. She realises that she must look very different from what he has seen before and laughs too.

”How can he look like a one of us?” she asks after a moment, tracing his fair skin with her fingers. ”Why isn’t his skin blue and cold to touch?”

The baby looks nothing like the Jötnar, and Frigga wonders how something so frail and beautiful could come from the realm of never-ending winters and giants.

”When I touched him, the blue bled away from his skin”, Odin explains. ”He must be a natural shapeshifter.”

Frigga turns to meet his eye. ”Will it last?”

She might be gentle and peaceful, but she's not naive. She knows very well that the Aesir will not accept a Jötun in their midst, not after the war that took so many of them. Fathers and husbands and sons and brothers, brave men who will mourned for a long time. The Aesir are not forgiving, and she knows that were they to know about the baby’s heritage, they would not hesitate to slay him in his crib. They must not know.

”I believe it will until one of his kind touches him, and that will not happen”, Odin says, and Frigga lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. The child will be safe.

Frigga presses the child’s head close to her chest, feeling how warm he is. He is small and light in her arms, and she remembers that Thor was much bigger when he was born.

”Thor will love him”, she says, already thinking about Thor, who has just started learning how to walk. Her son is curious and enthusiastic about everything new, and she doesn’t doubt for a moment that Thor will be fascinated by the baby. ”It is good for him to have a brother.”

She closes her eyes and imagines two boys running in the hallways, sleeping in the same bed with their hands intertwined, sitting with her in her gardens. She imagines them always together, brothers bound to each other.

”What shall we name him?” Odin asks. Frigga sees the way her husband looks at the baby, how he holds him as if protecting, and she knows that he too will love this child.

Frigga thinks. The baby is special, that she knows already. She can feel the magic surging in his veins. It’s strong and wild, much like ice and wind, hard to control and truly powerful when unleashed. She hasn't seen such magic in centuries, and she knows that he will be a a powerful sorcerer one day.

”Loki”, she answers at last. ”His name is Loki.”

Later when Odin is meeting with the council, Frigga sits beside Loki’s crib. She looks at him as he sleeps and realises that nothing will be the same anymore. She feels the threads of fate changing.

She goes back to the balcony, and her tapestry is still in the basket where she left it. She takes it without even looking at it, not wanting to see it ever again. She feels her hands shaking at the mere thought of it, and she thinks of her mother’s words then.

Frigga throws the tapestry to the fireplace and watches as it burns.


End file.
